3 for me and 6 for Angus, years of totally brilliant fun in London. But student life and loans came to an end, staying in London faced us with the prospect of 6 days a week, before 8 in the morning to varyingly late at night in a job we thought was sort of great at the start, but over weeks we'd start to resent for depriving us of a sociable time to have dinner with our housemates, any days off spent mostly sleeping… Wondering when we last made any art… and how long are we supposed to pretend we are enjoying this? Trying to 'climb the ladder' in an economy where half the ladder rungs turn out to be an inaccessible illusion. Being a part of Actionspace when they got their funding cut and could no longer provide a free art centre; Watching the individuals with disabilities and learning difficulties who had come regularly to make their art, which for most was their best or only way of communicating, disappear off the radar. Their disability allowance had also been cut.
Angus working hard and reliably for 5 years for Evans Cycles in Holborn who, after an 'extraordinarily successful year', wrote to tell their staff (working for £6.50/h without any real pay rise) of the millions they had made in profit, and to reward them for their hard work with a box of Quality Streets to share between them, equalling at a reward of a chocolate and a half per staff member.

There were ways to live around the economic kind of shit- we had 3 years of delicious meals for next to no £. At around 7pm Peckham Rye bins overflow with slightly bruised vegetables and ripe fruit. Covent Garden Market will give you bags of focaccia and samphire if the market manager catches you rummaging in a bin, he walked us around the stalls collecting bits that didn't sell, happy to ensure no food from his market would go to waste. Or New Covent Garden Market at 5am if you put on a 'I'm supposed to be here' high-vis and avoid the security guards who have now been told to get rid of the people diving into skips to make meals from the mountains of food heading to land-fill.